Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan termed it 'unfair' to link everything with Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi who is chief of the proscribed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ).
Nisar pointed out the criticism came from PPP's side for allegedly maintaining friendly ties with the ASWJ chief.
"Which PPP leader did not meet leaders of proscribed organisations in their time?" he asked while talking to media representatives in Kallar Syedan, a sub-district of Rawalpindi.
He said people with links to terrorist organisations were eliminated, jailed or had fled abroad, but members of groups proscribed on sectarian grounds "who have no cases against them" still reside in the country.
"How is it fair to link everything to Maulana Ludhianvi?"
Scholars Sajid Naqvi and Agha Syed Hamid Ali Shah Moosavi could not be linked to terrorist organisations but their organisations were still "proscribed on sectarian basis", he said.
Responding to criticism of his remarks in the Senate that outlawed sectarian organisations should not be equated with those of terrorist outfits, Nisar asked whether it was "a crime" to suggest that separate laws should be formed to deal with groups proscribed on sectarian basis to remedy the "confusion being created".
The minister's remarks that some organisations were purely terrorists while some had clash on sectarian lines had prompted the opposition to walk out of Senate in protest on Tuesday.
